the symphonic ordinary

I tweeted recently that sometime the seemingly mundane is life's greatest joys. It was a spur of the moment feel that could not be elaborated in under 140 characters.

Seemingly mundane?

As of late, each of us is equally tired at the end of the day. There is little strength left to exchange words, just knowing smiles that fill in the attempted conversation from weary individuals around a dinner table. What follows each evening is a routine. But sometimes I hear the tap running over the dishes in the kitchen and I hear something else. It is a song, a refrain of love in the most simple yet meaningful act of gracious refusal to help so I can get work done or hit the sack earlier.

It is nothing and it is everything.

In the morning, there is the flicker of the light switch in the bathroom across the hall, the slippers shuffling along the laminated hardwood, the soft murmuring in the hall. The fridge opens and closes at precisely the right amount of time it takes to pull out a carton of eggs. Clock strikes six. Quiet smiles from crooked backs and swollen eyes. Clock strikes seven. A turn of the key to listen to the engine sputter to life in the cold and the start of a day. From then on, it's full speed ahead until the evening routine.

A buzz of the phone to check if things are okay in the afternoon. A rush that jostles and shoves back to the train station. The scenery flying by at eighty-miles per hour as the sun sets rapidly in the distance.

This is a drill we've mastered now. It's all the motions we go through each day. The monotonous procedure can prove to be overbearing at times but every once in awhile, I hear a soft melody. It is a quiet but steady rhythm composed of the various symphonies that grace my life. Because with each beat, I know there are people who live in this house that love me. And though they retreat to bed in the dead of night, they are up to greet me before the sun has even risen for the day. They pinch every penny to get me an education that I could at least take seriously. They encourage me to keep pursuing a distant dream.

Really. I am not one for cliches, but I won't deny that some of life's greatest secrets is hidden among the most repetitious phrases. The little things matter. Because when you have had a dreadful and unmotivated morning and you come home feeling defeated, you can choose to hear these melodies. And you can choose to let them change you--the rhythm, the flow, the pulse of life is beautiful. And the ones that play the symphony, more so.